In 2021, the astrology market was valued at $12.8bn. It is projected to reach up to $22.8bn by 2031. That means the market would have increased by 78 per cent in 10 years. 

So with such great projected exponential growth, is there any legitimacy in astrology? 

The short answer is we simply do not know, but to extend the answer; it is very hard to scientifically disprove it. The people in the experiments simply have too much bias either through already believing in it or not wanting to believe it, which therefore would influence the results.

But let’s for the sake of argument eliminate all biases and imagine these people as people who’ve just learnt about astrology. A problem persists - the difference between viewing ourselves and what we actually are.

Even if we removed the bias of astrology, the self would still technically be a bias as we don’t actually know what we are like, and some people argue the self doesn’t even exist!

British philosopher John Locke famously argued that all our ideas come from experience and emphasised the need for empirical evidence which is ironic as in astrology there is none.

We can conclude one thing, that astrology is not a science (unlike 50 per cent of the American population) and physically cannot be proven, as the scope of it can be so big but so narrow at the same time.

An example of it being too big can be the self-example stated in the first paragraph, but an example of it being too narrow can be the simple act of describing someone with a word. If I described someone as fun, but then their parents died, most likely they wouldn’t be fun.

So does this therefore mean that astrology is wrong?

This shows the difficulty of actually finding a base of objective rules that people agree to, which even if you could somehow get a majority consensus; it would still be almost impossible to substantiate anything for the correlation between the organisation of stars and human personality. 

Now some might be sceptical about this purely empirical argument on the uncertainty of astrology, as you think your personality completely fits in the astrological sign that you have been assigned at birth. I, therefore, ask you to try to test; ask one of your friends or family members to tell you their astrological sign and then make up a lie about how the earth’s trajectory has shifted, which means their astrological sign has shifted by two consecutively, then proceed to show them the astrological sign that they would be (eg Aries to Gemini). Funnily enough, most people I spoke to told me that those new characteristics also fit their character.

True or false, astrology clearly shows the will to believe something is stronger than any proof provided.

  • This article was written by Adan Lee, Wildern School, as part of Newsquest's Young Reporter scheme.